The Other Road
by menolly-au
Summary: Written for house fest on LJ. Prompt : When Dr. Nolan comes to pick up House at the police station, after Freedom Master's suicide attempt, House doesn’t stop him and is transferred to the new mental hospital instead. House Wilson friendship


_Greg sits in his room silently. Sent to his room by his father after he had screamed out that he knew that he was a bastard, that he was another man's son. He doesn't regret his words, but he regrets what will happen now. His mouth is dry, his heart pounding. His father's punishments are usually swift and hard. _

_He hears footsteps coming up the stairs and then the door opens. Still in full dress uniform his father steps into the doorway and Greg scrambles to his feet. They stare at each other and then Greg drops his gaze and looks at his feet , waiting for his father's lecture._

"_You are a disgrace to this family Greg. You behave without honour, you show no regard for yourself, or for other people, you do not seem to care what harm your actions cause. You cause your mother only grief. I am finished with trying to correct you and guide you. You are beyond salvation. You are not my son and I no longer care." _

_Greg looks up in shock, his father's face is cold and expressionless, like stone. The man leaves without looking back at his son._

_Greg sits back down. He should feel happy, elated that he has gotten away with it, that there will be no further punishments._

_Instead he feels empty, alone._

_That feeling never leaves him._

For just a moment House experiences pure happiness. Flying with Freedom Master he feels like he is doing something good, something wonderful. He is helping another human being feel happy. He is happy. He flies and he smiles and he feels joy.

When Freedom Master thanks him and then jumps off the roof he is frozen. He is a doctor, he should be rushing to help. He can hear the cries of the people below, knows that he should join them but all he can feel is the taste of his happiness turning to dust in his mouth. He staggers to the edge and looks down at the man's broken body. He knows that he did this. He caused this.

When he finally reaches the ground he goes over to the motionless body and picks up the jacket and hugs it to himself, the blood of Freedom Master stains it. He clutches it and knows that he is worthless, nothing good will ever come of him. All he is, all he can ever be is a force of destruction to anyone he meets.

At the hospital he is ignored, shoved off to one side, left to sit in a public corridor. They have seen the band on his wrist, marking him as a lunatic. He knows they have called Nolan. Maybe they have called the cops as well, there is a uniformed officer lurking down the corridor a bit. House doesn't care. He sits and holds the jacket, lets the blood stain his hands.

When Nolan approaches him he looks up, feeling fuzzy and disconnected. He wants nothing more than for Nolan to hug him , to hold him and tell him everything will be all right. For once he needs comfort and soothing words. He is ready to agree to get help, to take meds, to do anything Nolan wants that will cure him. He doesn't want to be this person any more. He doesn't want this pain any more, he has carried it too long. He barely hears the words as Nolan recites the injuries he has caused. Alive. Lucky to be alive, but alive. Not Amber. Not Kutner. Not dad. Alive. He has done a very bad thing but he will get better now, he will get help at last.

"..you don't care about anything House."

He stares at Nolan. Nolan is giving up on him, transferring him, getting rid of him. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Nolan knows that House can't be saved, can't be helped. He brings misery to everyone around him. If he goes back to Mayfield who knows what harm he will do to Alvie, to the others.

Nolan turns and walks away. House wants to shout after him, to tell him no, to say he will be good, and he will get help and he will get better. The words do not come. Nolan turns the corner and is gone. The moment is lost.

By the time the cops take him to Winslow Psychiatric hospital the shock has worn off and he is himself again. Fuck Nolan, fuck the rest of them. He doesn't need them, he doesn't need anyone. Only a moron would jump off a roof and think he can fly.

_He dreams of flying, arms and legs spread, sun on his face, breeze carrying him to the clouds. There is no pain, there is no misery, there is only this moment of pure joy. He looks across at Freedom Master. The man is happy, free, flying. Then the moment passes and Freedom Master falls, falls, falls. Blood appears on his face, his bones break and splinter, his organs spill out. He opens his eyes, heart racing and gripped with agony. A nurse stares at him from the doorway of his new room and he realises he must have been screaming. He turns her back on her, not wanting her to see his pain._

His first night in Winslow Psychiatric doesn't go well. His reputation gets him placed into isolation for 'observation'. On edge already, a night spent in there with only nightmares for company drives him to seek out the director of the institution the next morning.

"I'm checking out. I'm done with this place. I'm off the Vicodin, I'm not having hallucinations any more. You can't keep me."

Doctor Sharlow shakes his head, examining House's file.

"Dr House, Doctor Nolan's objections to your leaving psychiatric care are still valid. Even more valid considering your escapade yesterday. In light of those events we could apply to the courts for a hold..."

"If you do that I will make sure the authorities know just how lax the security is at Mayfield. Lax security that led to one of their patients being critically injured." House stares the other doctor down. Sharlow has a weak case anyway, House is well known, respected amongst the medical community even if not well liked. A court is unlikely to consider him a serious threat to himself or others. House knows how to impress when circumstances call for it.

Sharlow closes the file.

"If you sign yourself out I cannot recommend to the Board that they reinstate your license."

"Fine. I was considering a change of profession anyway, porn star maybe."

An hour later House is walking out, his suitcase clutched in his hand. He catches the bus back towards Princeton. Sits in the back and smirks at the empty seat, no Amber this time. The other passengers avoid him and he sits by himself, just the way he likes it. He gets off at the stop nearest his favourite bar and starts making up for lost time. The whiskey goes down smoothly. He's missed this, if he can't have Vicodin he can at least have this pleasure. One drink follows another and soon Mayfield and Nolan and that crackpot Freedom Master recede into the numb area of his brain, hidden away.

He calls Wilson for a lift when he is too drunk to navigate his own way home. Wilson comes to get him,greeting him with sad but resigned eyes. House thinks that by now Wilson has had all the hope beaten out of him and his life has just become an endless series of disappointments. They go back to Wilson's place, to Amber's shrine. As Wilson makes up the couch for him House reaches out and grabs the other man's sleeve.

"I'm off the Vicodin."

Wilson manages to smile at that.

"That's great, House."

_Wilson's place is quiet at night, and House can easily hear the whispering. He rises off the couch and goes to Wilson's door. Wilson has his back turned and is talking to the wall. He is talking to Amber. House can hear the grief and loss in his voice. The future that was stolen from him. House goes back to the couch and closes his eyes. When sleep comes it brings only dreams of buses and pills and electricity running through his brain. His father comes to him and whispers in his ear, "It should have been you."_

He meets with Cuddy. He tells her the hallucinations are gone, and he is off opiates. She nods and doesn't meet his eyes. Neither of them mention the night of passion that never was. She can't give him his old job back, not without a license. They still need his skills though so he becomes a teacher, a consultant. Foreman becomes a figure head. House will be the ghost who walks through the hospital, never quite there. Unclean but needed. The janitor of his long distant past.

Taub and Thirteen have fled, Foreman, Chase and Cameron have gathered around the conference table. It is like old times. House deflects their questions with his usual grace and they begin to hammer out a differential. House tries not to think about the pills in the office next door. Tries not to mind when Foreman enters his office and begins to clean it out, to make it his own.

Each night be goes home to Wilson's place. They sit and eat pizza and watch TV. House pretends to laugh at what Wilson says, and what is on TV. He tries not to notice the loss in Wilson's eyes, the lines on his face. He tries not to think about what he has cost Wilson. What Wilson has lost because of him. Wilson hasn't given him a room. He sleeps on the couch.

There is a squabble with a neighbour. House loses his temper with the guy, the police are called. House is advised to move out, to leave so as to avoid any further action with the police. House wants Wilson to say that he will move out too, that they will find a place together somewhere, away from Amber's ghost.

Wilson stays quiet and so House leaves.

_House goes home at night to his apartment. It's cold there, and quiet, and lonely. Everything is as he left it that last night. Everything. The pills hiding in his socks, in his kitchen canisters, inside the piano lid. He thumbs the top of one and then puts it back in its hiding place. The spectre of Amber still hangs over him and he doesn't want to see her again. He picks up his bottle of bourbon and retreats to the couch, watching his tivo'd soaps long into the night. The less he sleeps the less he dreams._

He solves a few cases, stays silent while Chase murders Dibala. Watches Foreman wrestle with his guilt, with his conscience and then keep Chase's secret. He looks at Chase and wonders if he did this. Did he turn the fresh faced young Aussie into a killer? He has taught them all to do whatever they think is the right thing, he can't judge for them what is right and what isn't.

One good thing about his new status is that there is no clinic, no paperwork and no patient visits. Between cases he spends less and less time at the hospital, more and more time at home in his apartment. He tries to divert his attention away from his pain with cooking classes, with porn, with internet gaming - they remain just diversions.

Wilson goes away for a few days to a medical conference with Cuddy. When he returns he comes to see House and tells him that Cuddy is now seeing Lucas. House isn't sure how he feels about that. He knows that he and Cuddy have no future but it hurts to think of her with Lucas. At one time he had thought of Lucas as a friend.

Wilson doesn't have much else to say. He was supposed to have been presenting a paper but at the last minute it was called off apparently. When House asks why Wilson just shrugs.

"I figured that it would be nice if one of us still had a license."

On the whole House agrees with that so he doesn't press further. There is a monster truck marathon on that night so they watch that and avoid the subject of Cuddy and of medical conferences. Wilson crashes out on House's couch, House is hoping for pancakes in the morning but he wakes up to an empty apartment.

_Pain eats at him, it gnaws away at him every minute of every day. saps his strength until his world becomes about nothing but the pain. The meds they put him on in Mayfield aren't working. Nobody can be expected to live like this. He paces his apartment, screaming inside every time his foot brushes the floor, sweat dripping down his face. Why won't the pain stop? Why won't it go away so he can get some sleep?_

_The pills are still there. Little white pills in their hiding places. He can see each vial, he can count every pill. If he reaches out now he can touch the container. Just touch it. He can decide for himself. Just one pill. They are pain killers, he is in pain. He just needs one. It goes down easy, familiar taste. The numbness follows, the pain goes, he can breathe again. Just one. Four hours later another follows._

Cuddy pulls a random drug test on him. One of the conditions of his continued employment at the hospital, tenuous as it is. He knows he is gone, there have already been three little white pills that morning, his stash being nearly exhausted he will have to hit the streets soon looking for more. When Cuddy comes looking for him in the afternoon he is cleaning out his stuff.

"House, we can get you into another rehab programme. Put you on medical leave." Wilson leans against his desk, Cuddy at the door. Two do-gooders both trying to save him.

House shakes his head.

"No, no more rehab, no more programmes, no more leave. Give it up, its useless. I'm in pain, I'm an addict. That's just the way it is."

"House, you need this job, you need to work. Without work you'll..."

"No, I need the pills. They keep me sane, they keep the pain away."

"Do you want to start hallucinating again? How well did that work last time House?" Wilson nags at him.

House slams down his cane.

"Yeah Wilson, I want to start hallucinating your dead girlfriend again. Maybe this time I can get to the part where we fuck..."

The fist crashes into his jaw and he goes down hard.

Wilson stares down at him and House spits out blood. He figures he's had that punch coming for a long time. Cuddy flaps between them, distraught. The fellows stare in from the conference room and House thinks that he's finally found the line where this friendship breaks_._

Instead Wilson leans down and helps him to his feet.

"Get your stuff and I'll take you home, you won't be able to carry it on the bike."

_Every day has twenty four hours. It seems like such a long space of time to fill. The hours when he should be sleeping are taken with lying awake staring at the ceiling. Dad, Amber, Kutner, Freedom Master. Mayfield, pills, booze, Wilson. Pain. Always pain. Breakfast is pills and coffee. Mindless TV, phone never rings now. Hospital has been warned off, fellows have moved on. Lunch, more TV, porn, sleep. Take out for dinner, more pills, more booze. Try to sleep. Rinse and repeat. Not living, just existing._

Wilson comes by every day, tells him about cases at the hospital, about how Foreman is coping - badly apparently. Chase and Cameron have split up, over some unspecified event and Cameron has fled the state. House spares a moment to wonder why she didn't come to say goodbye, to fuss over the poor damaged drug addict one last time, he guesses that she has finally realised that he's a lost cause.

One day when Wilson comes he doesn't say anything. Just sits and buries his head in his hands. House sits opposite and waits for Wilson to talk.

"Danny was released into a halfway home last month." Wilson finally says, removing his hands from his face, staring at House with red rimmed eyes. "They just contacted me, he didn't check in last night, he's back out on the streets."

House stares at Wilson, not knowing what to say. 'I told you it would end badly' does not seem appropriate in the light of Wilson's devastation.

They sit in silence for a while and then Wilson fishes a vial of pills out of his pocket and holds it cradled in his hands.

"I can't do this any more House. I can't prescribe for you," he whispers.

"I'm not Danny. I'm in pain, I need those pills."

"You're going to die House, these things are going to kill you, if they don't drive you mad first."

House stares at him, and the little bottle of salvation in Wilson's hands.

"Why?" asks House. "Why do you care?"

Wilson collapses against the back of the couch and stares at the floor.

"Because if you die I'll be alone."

Eventually Wilson falls asleep on the couch, mantle of defeat heavy on his shoulders. House watches him breathe for a few minutes and then pops a couple of pills into his mouth. For pain he tells himself, just for pain.

_The bar is seedy, the people who frequent it are shady at best. House shuffles in, take a seat and waits. Before long he is joined at the table. Pills are pushed across the table, money is exchanged and they go their separate ways. The bottle slips into this pocket, heavy and full. The rattle as he walks is no longer comforting as it used to be, he knows it's an eventual death sentence ._

The ambulance is cramped inside. He is strapped to a gurney and he feels trapped, surrounded. Bile rises in his throat and he tries to roll but cannot, he chokes. They curse and turn his face to one side. Rough hands clean him, voices mutter. Damned junkie. He is offloaded into the emergency department and their words follow him.

"He was passed out in the street, looks like an overdose. Vicodin tabs in his pockets. Don't know how many he took. No ID."

He knows he doesn't need ID. He can recognise the walls of PPTH easily enough. A doctor he recognises looks at him and then hurries to a wall phone. Calling Cuddy or Wilson? Soon they will appear. He remembers Wilson looking at him in disgust when he overdosed that Christmas Eve, he closes his eyes and allows himself to drift. He doesn't want to see that expression on Wilson's face again, even if he does deserve it.

He hears voices calling him, urging him to wake up but he ignores them, the darkness is much more enticing.

_Tubes go down his throat, hands reach for him, pulling at his clothes. A circle of faces looking down at him. He knows them all. They are trying to help him, to stop him from slipping away, from dying. Don't they know that he can't be helped and that death would only be a relief? His body fights for life even as he resists. Maybe Kutner had it right. One bullet to the head, a pool of blood on the floor. Wilson making sticky bloody footprints as he comes towards him, reaches out and then leaves. Death fades away and life takes over. The people retreat and leave him. He will live._

They move him to a private room. A quiet, cold, private room. Forty-eight hour watch. Psychiatric review. See if he is sane enough to go on living. The overdose wasn't intentional he tries to tell them. A miscalculation, a mistake.

Wilson doesn't come. No lectures, no hands on hips, no calling him an idiot. Again he wonders if he might have driven the man away at last.

Cuddy appears, anger all over her face.

"Nice of you to bring the twins to see me Cuddles..."

She steps up to his bed and for one moment House thinks she is going to slap him, small hands curl at her side and she practically spits venom at him.

"Don't House. Just don't. I can't believe you can be so...stupid! What the hell were you thinking? Wilson's lying in recovery and you're out getting stoned!"

House stares at her.

"What are you talking about Cuddy? What's happened to Wilson?"

She stares at him and her expression softens.

"He didn't tell you? A friend of his needed a liver transplant, and Wilson...Wilson was a match."

"He's donating a bit of his liver? Is he insane!?" House starts to get off the bed, legs shaky and head pounding. Cuddy grabs one arm.

"It's done, House. He's out of recovery, it went well. He's down in the ICU for 24 hour observation and then he'll go to a ward."

"How could you let him do it Cuddy?" House was furious. "Are you expecting your doctors to donate spare parts now? It's completely unethical."

Cuddy laughed. "Like you care about ethics House. I told him he was an idiot. A shame you weren't here, maybe you could have stopped him."

He stares at her, with nothing to say to that. When Wilson hadn't come to visit last night House had hit a local bar, had a few too many pills, a bit too much alcohol and ended up here. While Wilson was on that table he'd been puking his guts out in emergency. He looks away from Cuddy, ashamed.

"I want to see him."

House sits next to the bed and stares at a sleeping Wilson. In all the time he has known Wilson the man hasn't had as much as an unexplained scratch. It had always been House in the hospital bed, too many times. Seeing Wilson like this, pale and in pain even in his sleep is like looking in a mirror. Is this what it has been like for Wilson?

Wilson opens his eyes.

"You idiot!"

Wilson smiles groggily.

"House, you came."

House doesn't explain exactly how he comes to be in the hospital that morning.

"And you had part of your liver chopped out for that self important jerk Tucker! You could have died Wilson."

"I wanted to help him House. He was going to die, I couldn't let that happen."

House stares at him.

"You can't help everyone Wilson."

Wilson shrugs, wincing as his stitches pull. 'I can't help Danny, I can't help you, but I could help him."

"You help me Wilson, you help me everyday, " House whispers. "Don't do something like this again."

Wilson stares at him, eyes foggy and clouded with pain.

"Why, why would you care?"

House hears his own question echoed back at him. Thinks of how his world would be without a Wilson in it.

"If you die, I'll be alone."

He stays by Wilson's bedside as the other man drifts back to sleep, pulled down by the morphine drip he is attached to. If he had been here he could have stopped this, could have held Wilson back from sacrificing himself. At the least he could have been with him.

He looks up as Cuddy comes into the room, ready to escort him back to the psych ward.

"I need to check myself out."

_As he drives he remembers the last time. Wilson driving him, peering at him anxiously every few minutes. Staring out the window, wondering if he was losing his mind, if he would ever return to Princeton. Giving Wilson his things for safekeeping. Saying goodbye, wanting to grab hold of Wilson and never let go. In the end just nodding and walking off._ _He remembers detoxing, sweating, agonising pain, being strapped to a bed. He doesn't know if he can endure that again. _

He waits outside Nolan's office, head down. Nolan had predicted that this would happen, that House would not survive without treatment. Now he has been proven right. Nolan calls him in and he enters and slumps into a chair in front of Nolan's desk. Nolan comes and sits down beside him.

"House, I am so sorry for what I said."

House had been expecting 'I told you' or 'I knew you'd be back' not an apology.. He can't remember anyone ever saying those words to him. He stares at Nolan, a question in his eyes.

"I was...angry about what happened to Steve. I took it out on you. I forgot that you were sick too. I shouldn't have said what I did. I shouldn't have stopped trying to help you."

"No, I wasn't sick." House denies. "I knew what I was doing. And it's true, I don't care about anyone except myself."

"Yes Greg, you were sick. Very sick and you had been for a long time. You still are. And I know you care about people, you care about Wilson, you care about Cuddy and I'm fairly sure you even cared about Amber and Kutner. "

House looks away, unable to deny it.

"I would like you to give me another chance Greg, another chance to help you get well."

House shakes his head.

"I don't know if anyone can help me. I've been taking Vicodin again. A lot, more than before. I overdosed two nights ago. I...don't know what to do. I just....I don't want to hurt people any more. I don't want to feel like this. "

Nolan nods and goes to the door, sticks his head and gestures to somewhere out there. House looks up as another man walks in.

"Freedom Master." He stares at the man, walking, although with a slight limp. Alive.

"Call me Steve." Steve smiles at House who looks away, guilt and shame overwhelming him as he remembers what he did to this man.

Nolan puts a hand on Steve's shoulder. "Steve has been staying at Mayfield, doing a lot of work with us. His physical injuries are all healed now and he is due to be discharged next week."

"I wanted to thank you House."

House laughs harshly but there is no humour in it. "For almost killing you."

"No, for believing in me. For showing me how to fly."

House remembers those few moments in the sky, how wonderful it had felt, to fly.

Nolan sits on the edge of his desk and puts his hand on House's shoulder.

"Let me help you Greg."

House looks at him and thinks of happiness and freedom. Looks at Steve who smiles at him. Thinks of Wilson, lying pale, lonely and lost, in a hospital bed. He takes a deep breath and nods.

"How do we start?"

_The room is the same as before, dismal and lonely. He is already beginning to detox, feeling the pain and the sickness sweep over him. Nolan has promised that this time he won't be restrained and Nolan will come see him regularly until it is done. House has phoned Wilson and then Cuddy, asking her to keep an eye on Wilson, keep him from shedding any other vital organs in the name of friendship. Now House is alone._

_When he closes his eyes he sees Dad. He is sitting on his Dad's shoulders and the world seems fine from up here. He is laughing and happy and when he looks down Dad smiles up at him._

"_You are doing the right thing Greg. I'm proud of you."_


End file.
